


Pumpkins and Paparazzi

by Wenzel



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Halloween, M/M, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 08:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12339048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wenzel/pseuds/Wenzel
Summary: Shiro and Keith are back on Earth with the other Paladins, and it's their first Halloween since returning.  What is life like now that the war is over, and just how many silly Halloween decorations is Shiro going to cover their house in?





	Pumpkins and Paparazzi

The house was new in the sense that it was just bought, not in the sense that it was constructed recenty. This fact made the new Halloween decorations stand out in an ugly way. While the ghosts were plastic and the ghoulish screens freshly painted, the old ivy-covered stone of the house declared the building centuries old.

Shiro didn’t care. Keith did. It left Keith to scratch at and weather each of the decorations Shiro had carted home. Shiro hadn’t meant to buy so much, he told Keith. The route home just had a party store, and there was always something new available. And they didn’t have anything after years in dorms and in space, so they had plenty of use for them!

Shiro was incredible in multiple senses.

It was their first Halloween since coming back to Earth. Their lives had become an odd mixture of daily monotony--paperwork, meetings, training--and the exhilaration they’d got used to in space. The Lions and Paladins were still needed. They only lived on Earth for a few weeks at a time at most. So this Halloween was important. They’d never been around for October and none of them had been in New York City for it. Crisp autumn breezes rustled yellowing leaves in the parks around their neighbourhood. They lived in a house that was, technically, an extension of the Altean Embassy. Down the street, Hunk, Pidge, and Lance had their own homes, though just like Shiro and Keith, they were rarely there.

The only people who were usually around were the press and paparazzi. More than a few times, Keith had opened the door to find desperate journalists peeking into his mailbox or snooping around the property. Sometimes they knew the Paladins were on Earth; other times, they just hoped to capture a photo of an alien in the Embassy’s district or Shiro in his boxers, shirtless as he ground up a fresh tin of coffee in the kitchen.

Those photos sold especially well. Keith carefully ignored the calendar requests that came and refused to glower at swooning fans. He’d gone through a galactic war. He could deal with a starry-eyed delivery woman or screaming fans.

“Full-sized chocolate bars,” Shiro asked over a meal of pork loin, “or soda cans?”

Keith frowned at his plate. “... That’s a bit expensive, isn’t it--”

“We’re not poor, Keith.” Shiro’s voice was gentle. “We’re not paying for the house, and we’re both sitting a pile of money now. We can afford this, if you want to do it too.”

Did he want that? He’d been trick or treating a few times as a child. Never often--some of the families he stayed with didn’t celebrate, or lived in the middle of nowhere--but he’d dress in whatever costume he could make or was provided and roam the neighbourhoods on his own. Getting a giant chocolate bar had been the sort of trophy you won in tournaments. He’d always thought that, when he grew up, he’d live in a comfortable apartment and put up decorations. Being a space soldier in a fancy house with a rich boyfriend and money of his own hadn’t even been a dream.

“If we can afford it,” Keith said. He tried not to feel like a fretting housewife. Shiro had grown up well-off, though he hadn’t done Halloween like it was done in North America. Japan, Shiro had told him, enjoyed the _spirit_ (and how pleased Shiro had been at the pun) and aesthetic, not the practice of trick or treating. There were other ways to celebrate without becoming a nuisance to others who weren’t interested in the holiday.

But here, in New York, almost everyone celebrated. The gleam in Shiro’s eyes when they’d found out they had the 24th to the 1st of November off had been unholy. It was Shiro’s first Halloween outside of Japan--and he would do it right.

They bought both sodas and chocolate bars. While Shiro used a ladder to set up the decorations that Keith had sufficiently aged, Keith bundled candy, sodas, and stickers into little baggies. They’d chosen a fashionable new item on the party store’s shelves: Voltron-themed Halloween bags, decorated in witchy Lions.

“Oh my God,” PIdge said when she saw them.

Lance grabbed a little twist-tied bag and examined it thoroughly with his hands. “We need some of these, _immediately_ \--”

“We don’t even know if anyone comes through this street,” Hunk said. He eyed the bags, though. “But they’d fit my cookies really well.”

Pidge sighed. “Nobody’s going to eat a random person’s cookies, Hunk.”

“We’re not random people anymore," Hunk replied. That made Pidge pause. “If they’re young, they can eat them with their parents. And the older ones’ll know who we are.”

The awkward thing was that he was right, at least for most of it. Lance looked pleased at the thought, while Pidge looked uncomfortable. Keith put Pidge out of her misery. “We should have extras. We bought several boxes, and I’m not interested in making more than a few hundred.”

Lance wheezed. “A few _hundred_?”

“Just in case,” Keith said.

It became the joke of the day. _Just in case_. Lance took a box of bags, at least, and when dusk came days later, the children arrived. Keith tried not to blush too hard when the first wave came, most of them dressed as Paladins. They radiated excitement. They whispered among each other on the sidewalk and dared one another to go first. A young girl in Red Paladin armour didn’t even wait: she bolted up the stairs and flung her arms around Keith’s waist.

“It’s _you_!" she cried out before she devolved into squealing and giggling. Keith felt Shiro’s grin at his back.

The girl’s mother jerked forward, a flush on her cheeks. “Diana--”

“It’s okay,” he managed. The girl beamed up at her, her black curls tightly coiled. He smiled down at her, though he knew he was bright red. “The armour suits you.”

Diana hugged him tighter and buried her face in his stomach. The other children seemed to take that as a sign to converge. Shiro came to the door, a tray of bags in hand. Half the children descended on Shiro like a swarm of mosquitoes. Diana didn’t abandon Keith, though she loosened her grip on him.

The children’s glee exploded again when Keith started handing out the little baggies. Chocolate bars were waved around, and Keith looked up to see both parents, older teens, and scattered reporters snapping photos. What page would they end up on today? He just hoped it wasn’t the front. Shiro’s waves at the reporters and the children joining in wasn’t helping.

“Stop being Mr. PR,” he muttered to Shiro as he handed out more bags to the older kids. They were just as happy as the younger ones with what they got. “You’re making the rest of us look bad.”

Shiro hooked an arm around Keith’s waist and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Lights flashed from cameras. There were news vans pulling up--someone had spread the message that the Paladins were active for Halloween. Neither of them were wearing costumes, at least. Though who knew if Shiro would change his mind? Sets of armour waited in their rooms, ready for any attacks on the embassy.

Keith leaned in to Shiro. It blocked people’s stares at his arm. Since coming to Earth, Shiro had started wearing long-sleeved clothes. Shiro murmured a thanks and kissed him again. Down the street, he heard Lance’s joy at the crowds and reporters. Pidge sounded annoyed, and Keith thought he smelled Hunk’s cooking.

He’d been away from Earth for years. He’d seen death and misery and injustice on a scale few could dream of. But at that moment, in Shiro’s arms, surrounded by good things, close to good people, a sense of relief healed him from the marrow out.

Life was good.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at the-wenzel.tumblr.com!


End file.
